Combat

U.S. Ground Forces Sweep Toward Baghdad

By PATRICK E. TYLER

Published: April 3, 2003

KUWAIT, April 2 — In a sweeping advance, Army and Marine forces closed to within 20 miles of Baghdad from two directions today after crippling or destroying two divisions of the Republican Guard that had blocked their drive on the capital.

The Third Infantry Division battled forward today from a starting point north of Karbala, 45 miles from Baghdad, cutting through and routing disorganized Iraqi forces with no reports of American casualties.

But an American Black Hawk helicopter was shot down near Karbala, and 7 of the 11 troops on board were believed dead, a Defense Department official said. It appeared that small-arms fire from Iraqi forces had brought down the transport helicopter. No further details were immediately available.

A United States Navy F/A-18C Hornet went down over southern Iraq today, and initial reports said it was shot down by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile. In a statement from coalition air-war headquarters in Saudi Arabia, officials said the single-seat jet, flown from the carrier Kitty Hawk, went down at approximately 3:45 p.m. EST. If officials determine that it was downed by Iraqi fire, it would be the first such loss of the war.

The mechanized Third Infantry Division's progress was never seriously challenged by the vaunted tank brigades of the Medina Division of the Republican Guard, which had been pounded by days of precision airstrikes and artillery barrages.

Large numbers of Iraqi tanks have been destroyed by American air power. But it appeared possible — despite concerted allied efforts today to prevent this — that Saddam Hussein was collapsing his most powerful defenses into the capital, Baghdad, where superior American firepower and technology will almost certainly be less decisive. What proportion of the Republican Guard escaped to the capital is unclear.

"It amazes me that you would not have your armored units meet us," said Maj. Michael J. Johnson, executive officer of the division's Third Battalion.

Over the last few days, after being surprised early in the war by the strength of resistance from Iraqi forces in the south, the invading American troops appear to have recovered much of their momentum. They now occupy wide swaths of territory and stand close to the main prize — Baghdad — although most urban centers, and so most Iraqis, are not under American control.

It remained unclear whether an attack on Baghdad itself was imminent, and American and British military officials suggested that there might be a pause before the city was entered. Air Marshal Brian Burridge of Britain cautioned that while a decisive phase of the war had begun, "decisive phases often take time."

"We need to proceed with great delicacy in Baghdad as we did in Basra because we don't want to cause any more damage to the place than is necessary and we certainly don't want to add to civilian casualties," he said. Several days after it was encircled by British forces, Basra has not been attacked with heavy forces or occupied.

The advance on Baghdad was two-pronged. As the Army advanced to the west, the First Marine Division — which had raced east on Tuesday to cross the Tigris River at Numaniya, 100 miles from Baghdad — formed up today as a 14,000-member force preparing to strike toward the capital from the southeast. The Nida Division of the Republican Guard was in its path.

Allied aircraft are making bombing runs at the rate of 1,000 sorties a day, most of them aimed at Mr. Hussein's guard divisions.

Iraqi officials said the bombing raids and allied firepower had inflicted hundreds of civilian casualties in Baghdad, where a Red Crescent hospital was struck, and in the town of Hilla, about 30 miles south of capital.

A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross said one of its doctors had seen 280 wounded civilians at the Hilla surgical hospital from tank fire and cluster bombs. Local officials said the victims included many women and children. American military officials said the incidents were under investigation.

Baghdad shook under intermittent bombardment today. Iraqi state television said President Hussein had met with senior officials, including his two sons, Uday and Qusay.

While video was shown of the Iraqi leader, his sons were not present. It was impossible to determine whether the state apparatus was playing dated videotapes to keep Mr. Hussein's image before a battered population.

To the south of the capital, American troops fought today in full protective garb in anticipation of chemical or biological weapons attacks that commanders feared Mr. Hussein might unleash.

No such attacks were reported, but late today Bradley fighting vehicles of the Third Infantry Division opened fire on a industrial complex that one commander said was on the list of sites suspected by American intelligence of being a storage facility for chemical weapons.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the overall commander in the region, "has thoughts about a way to dissuade and deter" Iraqi use of chemical weapons, but added, "We'll leave that for the future."

Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks of the United States Central Command in Qatar said American forces had "destroyed" the Baghdad Division of the Republican Guard near the town of Kut, 105 miles southeast of Baghdad.

At a Pentagon briefing, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, "I would say the Medina and Baghdad divisions are no longer credible forces."

The situation in Iraq's second city, Basra, remained tense. A resident reached there by telephone tonight, a tribal leader who declined to be identified, said many residents were listening to British and American radio broadcasts.

"The popular forces are ready to throw down the regime," he said, "but we still have internal security around us. The people are afraid of the next moves." It was impossible to verify this account.

As the armies rolled toward Baghdad, there were scenes of jubilation in their wake. Units of the 101st Airborne Division entered the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 85 miles south of Baghdad, and were greeted by thousands of residents who cheered and gave thumbs-up signs to soldiers.

Such scenes have been very rare as American troops have pressed forward, encountering resistance or sullen disapproval in many places.

Even in Najaf, American forces were also met by a force of several hundred Iraqi irregulars, many of them holed up in the shrine of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, who is buried there.

General Brooks said, "The regime's use of the Ali Mosque for military purposes to trigger a coalition response is just the latest detestable example of the regime's strategy of deliberately putting sacred sites in danger."

Earlier, Iraq's minister of information, Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, asserted at a news conference that coalition forces were attacking the Ali shrine and trying to make the gold-domed mosque collapse with the concussion of low-flying aircraft.

In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair said intelligence reports indicated that Iraq's government "intends to damage the holy sites, the religious sites, with a view to blaming the coalition falsely for that damage."

"I would like to emphasize," Mr. Blair added in a statement directed at the wider Arab and Muslim world, "we are doing everything we can to protect those holy sites and shrines."

Also today, military officials released video of the commando raid that rescued Pfc. Jessica Lynch, whose 507th Maintenance Company convoy was ambushed March 23 by Iraqi tanks in Nasiriya.

The American marines of Task Force Tarawa — whose task it has been to secure Nasiriya and its bridges across the Euphrates that sustain the main supply route to the armies to the north — said today that they had suffered 12 confirmed dead and more than 50 wounded in the battles for the town. Six or seven other marines are believed to be missing there.

At Landstuhl Hospital in Germany today, where Private Lynch was expected to arrive, First Sgt. Bruce Cole and others who fought at Nasiriya recounted how intense some of the fighting had been. "You could see the impact of rounds around the vehicles in the road, in the berms," he said. "You could hear the snap of the rounds going over your head or around you or behind you or some striking your vehicle."

"The difficult part," he continued, "was trying to return fire and figure out who to shoot at."